Bess Collins of Kefi Vineyards in Monroe, takes her Greek heritage and puts it into her wines. P4
In Dobson, Hidden Vineyard is keeping it in the family, and producing fun wines such as Chill and Franc the Tank.. P6
During NC Grape Month, Screw it Wine and other bloggers explored a few of the grapes that grow well in the state – here are a few of them. .......... P8
Traverse City, Michigan, is a great travel destination, and with 11 wineries in a small stretch of land, it’s a wine lovers must! . P11
Tom and Josephine Silvey of Roaring River Vineyards have built up a travel destination in the small town of Traphill P14
The North Carolina Wine Festival will take place this month, and we find out what wineries such as Cypress Bend think of local events P19
Looking to explore North Carolina wineries in the lap of luxury? Look no further than the Van in Black.................................................................. P21
In Raleigh, Russ Broome has taken over BottleMixx, and has high hopes for its wine tastings – but don’t think you can find any local wines. ..... P24
Wehrloom Honey & Mead is located in Asheville, and we ask meadmaker Aron Wehr a few questions about mead P27
In this new series, Screw it Wine explores products made locally, such as healthy Gummy options made by Ripe Revival
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Want to learn how to make wine from just about anything? We have you covered; plus, the owner of a popular Virginia winery tells his story P30
Do you like to write? Would you like to write about beer? If you answered yes to both those, then we’re looking for you!
We are looking for folks who would like to coordinate with Hop Around NC interviewing some of your favorite North Carolina breweries. Hop Around NC will set the interview up, and you can talk to the owners and brewers who make this industry what it is today – and that’s one of the best craft beer scenes in the nation.
Email us at trianglearoundtown@gmail.com, and let us know if you’re interested.
As Kefi Vineyards owner and winemaker
Vasiliki “Bess” Collins sits inside her tasting room outside of Monroe, North Carolina, she at times ponders the future of the wine industry here in her state.
She talks about the difficulties of why so few upscale restaurants here in the state even carry local North Carolina wine.
“Even as winemakers, we go in and offer our product and sometimes they don’t even want to talk to us,” Collins says. “They’ll tell me all North Carolina does is sweet Muscadine, and that won’t sell. Even when we say we do
vinifera-style and European-style wines, they just don’t want to talk.”
Collins knows that the industry is producing excellent wines across the state. Owners and winemakers are putting blood, sweat and tears into creating a quality product – but she feels education needs to come from state institutions.
“It’s going to have to start from the top. North Carolina State University, which is our agricultural college, and Surry Community College with its enology program have to start educating the public and restaurants,” she says. “To have a high-quality product and give them to nice restaurants, someone besides us has to be helping get them into the restaurants.”
Collins is optimistic that this day will come
soon, and people around the state will learn that North Carolina isn’t all Muscadine wine. But it might take time.
Take a look at states such as New York, Virginia, Texas and even Michigan, where these states put a considerable amount of money into marketing, commercials and widespread media knowledge. Selling good wine makes money for each state, more capital, and more taxes paid in wine sales. Promoting the industry also enhances tourism and hospitality – which is minimal around many of North Carolina’s wine clusters.
On the outskirts of Charlotte, the small town of Monroe in Union County is where you’ll find Kefi Vineyards. This is where Collins operates her winery, which produces roughly 6,000 cases per year. Collins, along with the Muscadine making winery Treehouse Vineyards, are the only wineries in Monroe. The next closest winery to Monroe is almost 30 miles north.
Kefi Vineyards reflects on Collins’ Greek heritage and produces exclusively Greek and European-style wines. At Kefi, you’ll find varietals such as Assyrtiko, Malvasia Bianca, Ribolla Gialla, Roditis, Xynesteri and Negro Amaro – to name only a few. But it’s the grapes being grown by Collins that should bring any wine lover over to the winery for an afternoon.
Call it luck, but when Collins purchased the land many years ago, she wasn’t exactly sure what she had planned for it. Grapes weren’t on the top of her mind. “The land was lumpy, and the grading wasn’t all that good, so it wasn’t fit for horses or great for growing crops because it’s not the rich, dark soil you need,” she says.
A divine inspiration then came to her – to put something in the ground that was part of her heritage, her culture. “A lot of people don’t know about a lot of these Greek-style wines,” Collins says. “We got some of our vines
Sit outside at Kefi Vineyards and take in the vines, and in the distance the wine making facility where Collins produces her wine.
from monks in California, who other than them and us, no one is making these types of wines in the United States.”
Other varietals grown at Kefi came from California’s UC Davis, where Greek vines were kept for five years to make sure they were virus and disease-free.
Like many other winemakers today, Collins knows that education is a massive part of the industry. Walking into Kefi, you learn about pleasing Greek grapes’ flavor profiles and tastes and their pronunciation. This could be a problem for newbie drinkers who have managed to fit Cabernet, Merlot and Chardonnay into their vocabulary.
“We do get a lot of that,” she says. “In fact, people will ask why I don’t do a Chardonnay. They say you have grapes, so why not make it? I have to educate them and let them know Chardonnay is a grape, not a technique.”
But at Kefi, Collins and her staff are good at steering a person to wines with the same Chardonnay characteristics or red wine of a guest’s choice. “I think people find it interesting,” she says. “Some of our wines have hints of mango and earthy aromas, almost like a whiskey or bourbon, and people will tell us that they’ve never had a wine like that before.”
Tasting the wines at Kefi Vineyards is a refreshing take from the norm when conducting a statewide tasting. Almost all the wines sampled at the winery are an entirely different product than many are used to tasting, making this quaint little hideaway in the outskirts of Monroe worth a visit.
Screw it Wine is just waiting for Collins and Kefi Vineyards to free up some time to team up with a local distillery to craft some traditional Greek Ouzo.
This family-owned vineyard’s journey brings wines such as Franc the Tank, Chill and Pilot Path to the forefront of its lineup
BY JENNIFER PRIMROSEThe idea of one day owning a winery and vineyard for the family of Tim and Lisa Sherman alongside their son Josh and his wife Claudia Longenette ironically was born over a glass of wine. As Tim and Lisa were planning for their retirement, Josh and Claudia were contemplating investment opportunities when they proposed the idea of buying a vineyard. When some would consider this nothing but a fantasy and continue with the evening and new topics to discuss, this was not the case for the Sherman’s.
Both Tim and Lisa lived in Ohio and decided to retire after 30 years - Tim as a school administrator and Lisa with a national photo and
yearbook company. Over the years, their travels took them through the state of North Carolina, where they had already fallen in love with the beauty of the state, the friendly people, Carolina blue skies, and, of course, patronized local wineries. It only felt natural to step outside their home state of Ohio and venture south to a state with a blossoming wine industry to set their sites. While on the hunt for the perfect vineyard, they sought locations online in the Swan Creek area. However, their realtor introduced them to the ideal location hiding in the Yadkin Valley between Dobson and Pilot Mountain. The only problem is that it was not on the market. As
they rounded the curve, everything opened up, and they fell in love with the property. Fortunately, the owners were interested in selling, and as they say, the rest is history. The 32-acre vineyard was initially named Copeland Vineyards with a barn and an old 1890’s tobacco cabin on-site and 9 acres under vine. This vineyard was so secluded that even the locals did not know it existed. Hidden Vineyard only seemed appropriate as the Sherman’s and Longenette’s bounced ideas around for a name.
All four owners dug in and learned everything they needed to run a successful vineyard and winery business. As this fairy-tale journey continued, in 2017, Tim and Lisa moved to North Carolina and lived in a travel trailer on the property while Tim worked on upgrading the buildings on-site. The barn is now the tasting room, while the Tobacco Cabin is available for rentals. Tim and Lisa manage the vineyard while Josh and Claudia use their business acumen skills to set up and run this new venture.
Tim took classes at Surry Community College in Viticulture as he and Lisa studied together. They needed to replant over an acre of vines
while maintaining the remaining 8 acres. They have vines dating back 20 years with varietals such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay and Cabernet Franc. The vineyard has eight estate-grown varietals, including Petit Verdot, Petit Manseng, Merlot and Chambourcin.
Although the original business plan included a vineyard, winery, winemaker and business marketing, the Sherman’s and Longenette’s decided to use custom crush to produce its wines. They partnered with Windsor Run Cellars to make its red wines and Yadkin Valley Wine Company the white wines. Lisa will admit that her love of the Laurel Gray’s barrel-fermented Chardonnay is what convinced her to seek out Yadkin Valley Wine Company to make their white wines. They maintain a close working relationship with all their winemakers. When asked what makes their wines stand out against the rest when using the custom crush concept, Lisa explains that many variables go into the decision-making process by working closely with the winemaker. For instance, Hidden
Vineyard’s Chardonnay is 20 years old versus a younger Chardonnay. The terroir, weather conditions, when the grapes are harvested, type of yeast used, stainless steel versus barrel fermented, type of barrel, how long in the barrel, sugar content, etc. These conditions and decisions give each wine its signature and character that defines its origin and winery.
The wines currently being produced and offered as tastings, flights and bottles at Hidden Vineyard are Chardonnay (Lunch Box), Petit Manseng (Pilot Path), Cabernet
Sauvignon and Petit Verdot blend (131), Chambourcin (Claus), Cabernet Franc (Franc the Tank) and the latest in its lineup, a Rosé Merlot Blush (Chill). For the hidden meanings behind the names of these wines, download a copy of Screw It Wine, Issue 4.
The old barn was transformed into a farmhouse-style tasting room with natural light giving way to an inviting ambiance for guests to stay for the afternoon sipping on a glass of wine with panoramic views overlooking the vineyard with Pilot Mountain peeking over the horizon.
Primarily grown in France, Petit Manseng is known for its small, thick skin fruit, but lately, it’s starting to make its presence known in North Carolina. It may seem out of fashion from the wines produced in France, but winemakers here in North Carolina are given new opportunities to make Petit Manseng.
“The most important piece of the puzzle in farming Petit Manseng for wine production is its ability to battle the elements and still accumulate quality sugar, retain acidity,” says Justin Taylor, winemaker at Parker-Binns Vineyard in Mill Springs.
Taylor has been an extensive fan of the aromatic and flavorful white wine. “Petit Manseng is the cultivar that I have been able to count on since I was a student at SCC to deliver those white wines,” he says.
Located in the Tryon Foothills, ParkerBinns is home to 12 acres of vines growing everything from Chardonnay to Merlot. And this year, in the North Carolina Fine Wine Awards, the winery’s 2020 Petit Manseng was
hailed a winner for its powerful aromas of ripe orange, mango and brioche.
Petit Manseng is a great grape to grow in some of the humid states around the nation; as you see it pop up in regions in Georgia, Ohio, Virginia, parts of California, and of course, North Carolina. That’s primarily due to the grape’s open cluster and thick-skinned berries, which tend to keep it out of the crosshairs for late-season bunch rot.
Bunch rot is caused by a fungus, Botrytis Cinerea, and can be devastating to winemakers. “Bunch rot that affects so many other cultivars will usually dictate the picking decisions for the vineyard manager, not the ripeness,” Taylor says. But in the case of Petit Manseng and its durability, winemakers can choose their harvest based on fruit chemistry that will reach their stylistic goals.
Over at Jones von Drehle Vineyards and Winery in Thurmond, winemaker Dan Tallman is also a big advocate for Petit Manseng. “It is more disease resistant than any of the other vinifera varietals both on the fruit and in the
canopy,” he says.
The winery has been making its Yadkin Valley Petit Manseng for many harvests and continues to win impressive accolades from around the nation. In the annual San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition, Jones von Drehle’s Petit Manseng was awarded the Best in Class, Double Gold. With its hints of pear, citrus and tropical fruit on the nose and a balanced crispness in the finish, it’s no wonder this is one of the winery’s most influential wines.
“It delivers consistent, trouble-free fermentation and high-quality wine in the finished product,” Tallman says, while also admitting that another plus to Petit Manseng is with its elevated acid levels in the grapes, the local deer avoid the clusters.
“I have not been through a harvest in North Carolina where I was nervous about the picking decision on Petit Manseng.”
– Justin TaylorWinemaker, Parker-Binns Vineyard
And with the versatility of Petit Manseng, winemakers are not bound to make only one style – as Taylor states. There are many different options, from barrel or steel fermenting to late harvest or malolactic conversion. “It can truly handle the technical aspects of cellar management that allow winemakers to have freedom in making their version of the wine.”
Golden Road Vineyards co-owners Chad and Christa Guebert agree with the
versatility of the grape. Petit Manseng is a great substitute for those wine drinkers who have Chardonnay fatigue. “You want a bold, white wine, and most importantly, this is for those who still like to drink white wines in the Fall and Winter,” says Christa. “We’re not afraid to make our Manseng dry, and we let it hang, so you have those bold and robust stone fruit notes of apricots.”
In the recent NC Fine Wines competition, Golden Road Vineyard was one of the few that won medals for both its 2019 Petit Manseng and Petit Verdot. The winery also likes a play on words when talking about Petit Manseng and Petit Verdot by saying, “Though they be but
little, they are fierce,” once again referring to the grape’s thick skin and production of high acid.
From an acidic-driven wine to the fruit-forward citrus explosion, winemakers can do just about everything they want with Petit Manseng. Let’s advise them against putting it into wine slushies and ruining the fantastic taste held within the juice of these resilient grapes.
“I have not been through a harvest in North Carolina where I was nervous about the picking decision on Petit Manseng,” says Taylor. “I truly hope it continues to increase ... because I can’t seem to get enough of it.”
– Dathan Kazsuk and Jennifer Primrose• The fruit ripens late, usually after other white varietals, which results in a higher sugar level.
• They’re like a journalist and have thick skin. The thick skin of the Petit Manseng makes them more disease resistant and has a longer hang time on the vine.
• The skin to pulp ratio can lead to a high concentration of flavors and high acidity.
• Unlike the popular Viognier, Petit Manseng maintains its acid, making it more like a dry Riesling.
Ihadnever heard of Chambourcin until I began visiting North Carolina wineries, and I was hooked pretty quickly. No matter what other dry reds the winery was serving, I knew what I was taking home as soon as I tasted the Chambourcin.
Chambourcin is a FrenchAmerican hybrid bred for resistance to diseases and pests that plague the European Vitis Vinifera grapes. It is grown primarily in the United States, from the midwest to the east coast and as far south as North Carolina. Growers seem to love it for its heartiness, robust fruit yields and its compatibility as a blend.
I talked with owners at two North Carolina wineries – one in the Piedmont and one in the Yadkin Valley – about their experiences with and impressions of Chambourcin, and here’s what they said.
Located in the Yadkin Valley and Surry County Wine Trail, Hidden Vineyard was purchased in 2017 by owners Tim and Lisa Sherman, their son Josh and his wife, Claudia Longenette. The vineyard had 0.3 acres of Chambourcin grapes that were 3 years old at the time.
And thank goodness there wasn’t a full acre of Chambourcin, Tim says. The vineyard’s small plot of Chambourcin produces 2 tons of grapes each year that go into Claus, one of Hidden Vineyard’s signature wines.
The Chambourcin produces big clusters of grapes, weighing as much as half a pound per cluster. At Hidden Vineyard, the Chambourcin grapes are ready for harvest from midSeptember to early October.
As a hybrid, it’s the only grape variety at Hidden Vineyard that is not grafted onto resistant rootstocks and brings its own disease resistance.
Here, the Chambourcin vines are the first to be pruned at the vineyard each winter to create space for the larger grape clusters during the growing season.
While many red wine grapes actually produce a clear juice, Chambourcin juice is red. Hidden Vineyard partners with Windsor Run Cellars to make their red wines through custom crush and work closely with the winemaker to produce the wines they want. Claus, the signature Chambourcin, is aged 16 months in French oak.
Tim, a one-time home winemaker, says he was familiar with Chambourcin before becoming a vineyard and winery owner. However, he had never made wine with it. Longenette said she fell in love with Chambourcin when she first tried it in the Yadkin Valley. Visitors to the Hidden Vineyard tasting room love it too.
“When we found our little spot in heaven – our vineyard – I was so glad we had Chambourcin vines,” she said. When the family went through the process of naming the wines, Longenette chose the name Claus for the Chambourcin because, in Spanish, it’s short for “Claudia.”
Debbie Stikeleather, owner and winemaker at Iron Gate Vineyards and Winery near Mebane in the Haw River AVA, says that Chambourcin is her favorite grape to grow.
“Where I’m located is a tough area. The Chambourcin was always a wonderful producer – it takes two hands to hold one cluster of grapes.”
Growing any type of grape in the Piedmont is challenging compared with growing grapes in the cooler elevations, with greater disease and pest problems. Stikeleather said the Chambourcin tolerates the heat and humidity of the Piedmont summers. “It didn’t fall apart as the vinifera grapes did,” she said.
While her Merlot or Cabernet vines produced about 3 tons to the acre, the Chambourcin can produce anywhere between 4 to 6 tons. The grapes in the Piedmont are usually ripe in late August or early September, she said.
Different climates seem to produce different versions of Chambourcin wine, Stikeleather says. “I’ve had some folks come down from the north who say the Chambourcin tastes different in our warmer climate.”
Stikeleather now buys grapes from other growers to produce Iron Gate wines. But she remembers rubbing the skin of the Chambourcin grapes to uncover the red juice that signaled they were ripe for winemaking. She also liked to bring in a cluster of the grapes to let guests see and taste them while sampling wine.
In addition to bottling Chambourcin wine, Stikeleather blends the grapes to create her Rustic Blooming (half Chambourcin and half Niagara) and Sweet ‘n Sassy Cherry. The blends are among the wines sold in grocery stores in the Alamance and Orange County area.
Hampton writes the blog Tarheel Taps & Corks, an experience with North Carolina wine and beer. Find Hampton on Facebook, Twitter and her webpage, www. https:// tarheeltapsandcorks.wordpress.com.
BY JENNIFER PRIMROSE trianglearoundtown@gmail.com
Surrounded by crystal bluewaters, miles of shoreline, lighthouses and fishing towns, Traverse City, Michigan, is a favorite year-round destination for many.
Just north of Traverse City in the Grand Traverse Bay of Lake Michigan is Old Mission Peninsula. The peninsula is 19 miles in length, 3 miles in width, and sits along the 45th parallel.
Take a scenic drive up M-37 amongst rolling vineyards, cherry orchards, and apple trees. The peninsula is home to 11 wineries, restaurants from casual to upscale, inns and B&Bs, bike trails, walking and hiking trails, and a historic lighthouse at the peninsula’s tip.
Traverse City and Old Mission Peninsula is a favorite travel destination while in Michigan. One is sure to fall in love with the aura Traverse City has to offer.
The peninsula’s Old Mission AVA, American Viticulture Area, was established in June of 1987. The AVA is the smallest in the state producing fruit wines due to the abundance of fruit trees on the peninsula and viniferastyle wines. Visitors can expect to enjoy varietals such as Riesling, Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, Pinot Noir, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc.
Ice Wine is also typical here due to the climate in the vicinity.
Your wine journey starts just north of Traverse City at Black Star Farms Old Mission.
360 McKinley Road East
Black Star has locations in Suttons Bay, Old Mission Peninsula and a satellite tasting room in Frankenmuth.
The location on Old Mission was established in 2007 as a wine processing facility focusing primarily on its white wines.
With over 13 white wines available, guests are sure to find something to entice their taste buds. Although this location focuses on white wines, Black Star also produces around 10-plus red wines in its catalog in addition to its sparkling, dessert, ports and fruit wines.
8175 Center Road
Just a mile down the road from Black Star Farms is Mari Vineyards. The founder and owner of Mari Vineyards is Marty Lagina of History Channel’s The Curse of Oak Island fame.
Mari Vineyards was the first northern Michigan winery boasting a wine cave, similar to what is seen in Napa Valley. The wine caves provide stable temperatures making the winemaking process more stable.
This winery is producing some spectacular wines. With up to 20 different varietals growing grapes in its vineyards, Mari makes everything from Cabernet Franc to Pinot Bianco to ice wine.
12011
1000 Camino Maria Drive
Another short 5-minute drive from Mari Vineyards is Hawthorne Vineyards. This family-owned winery sits on an 80-acre farm with ties to northern Michigan dating back to the 1800s.
Hawthorne is perhaps one of the most secluded wineries on the peninsula, allowing guests a pleasant experience sipping wine on the outdoor patio while overlooking West Grand Traverse Bay.
Wines produced here include Riesling, Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, Pinot Blanc, Gewurztraminer, Gamay, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and cider.
11480 Center Road
Located in the old Maple Grove School, this winery dates back to 1991 when it planted its first Chardonnay and Riesling vines at the Kroupa Estate and led to its first wines being released in September 1994.
Today, you can stop in for wines by the glass, flight, or bottle and enjoy a seat outside on one of the perfect northern Michigan afternoons. The winery features wines such as Riesling, Gewürztraminer, Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, Pinot Blanc, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and Pinot Noir.
Evolved yet Primal is a slogan Bonobo Winery uses on its webpage. Just a half-mile down the road from Peninsula Cellars, this familyowned winery strives to educate its guests while providing an enjoyable experience. Bonobo currently produces seven grape varieties in its 19-acre vineyard. Those varietals include Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Riesling, Pinot Noir, and Cabernet Franc.
12239
This winery is one of the few places on the peninsula you can still do a tasting of 5 wines for $5. According to the winery’s Facebook page, they aren’t doing any flights. One can find a wide array of wines that range from Chardonnay and late harvest Riesling to robust reds like its Pinot Noir Reserve, Merlot Reserve, and Cabernet Franc. The winery also has a fun series of vintage-dated, small production wines in its Eclectic Collection. There you’ll find wines such as the Grü Vin Grüner Veltliner, Ship of Fools, Whole Cluster Riesling, and a Pinot Noir Rosé Vin Gris.
3309 Blue Water Road
Continue heading north for 2 miles to Brys Estate Vineyard and Winery. Brys Estate is a family-owned and operated dream borne after visiting Napa Valley in 1975. After retirement, Walt and Eileen Brys made their dream a reality and founded an award-winning winery.
With a South African winemaker, Coenraad Stassen, Brys produces red varietals such as Merlot, Pinot Noir, and Cabernet Franc. The white varietals are Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Riesling, Pinot Blanc, and Gewürztraminer.
After enjoying a glass of wine, be sure to make your way to the Secret Garden and peruse the lavender garden. The Secret Garden is the perfect place to shop for lavender products, take a stroll and relax under the Michigan blue sky.
15900
With one of the best views of the east arm of Grand Traverse Bay, Chateau Chantal sits high atop the peninsula with views of both the East and West Grand Traverse Bay.
With over 30-plus wines in its catalog, visitors will find just about every style on its menu. From the basics such as Chardonnay, Riesling, and Pinot Noir – to other rare finds like its estate Ice Wine, a dessert wine (Entice) as well as cherry wines and a cherry port.
2896 Bowers Harbor Road
Bowers Harbor Vineyards was established in 1991. Once a horse farm, this land has since flourished with 20 acres of vinifera vines. The tasting room occupies what was once the horse stable.
Varietals produced by Bowers Harbor include Riesling, Chardonnay, Gewürztraminer, Pinot Grigio, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, and Cabernet Sauvignon, producing more than 30 wines and hard ciders.
Bowers Harbor also offers guests vineyard tours and hikes along a nature trail.
14916 Peninsula Drive
Tabone Vineyards is familyowned and operated and is the newest winery on the peninsula but has been growing grapes in Traverse City for 20 years. The tasting room opened just over a year ago.
The award-winning winery produces estate-grown wines in small batches. While the winery offers roughly 17 wines, the majority are white wines. Varietals produced include Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Rose’ of Pinot Meunier, Riesling, Baco Noir, Marechal Foch, and De Chaunac.
16985
Bold flavor inside a modern tasting room. This small production winery currently has 23 acres of vineyards and a 10,500 square foot facility. For a region specializing in white wine, 2 Lads specializes in cool climate dry red and sparkling wines. However, it also produces white wines such as Pinot Grigio and Riesling. As for its red wine varietals, you may find Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, and Merlot.
ForTom and Josephine Silvey, what would eventually become Roaring River Vineyards, almost didn’t be.
Tom Silvey grew up in the mountains of Tennessee, and after he married Josephine and moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, he wanted a small piece of property, similar to what he grew up on the next state over. Something small to build a cabin. Something possibly overlooking a lake. He thought he found that in Valle Crucis in Watauga County. He made his way to make a deposit on the property, and to his disbelief, the property was sold before he arrived.
The property owner mentioned to Silvey that he owned another piece of land in Wilkes County, and if he would follow him to the property, he’d show him around. Tom fell in love with the property, as did Josephine, and that property is where their vineyard resides today.
“I then thought it would be nice to grow two rows of grapes in front of our little chalet to remind me of my native France,” Josephine says, which got Tom searching on Google where to buy grapevines locally. It was there Tom saw that Surry Community College was having a seminar on starting a vineyard. “He had stars in his eyes,” she says. “So I always say, be careful what you tell your husband because it could actually come true.”
“It was a one day orientation that took us through the entire business of starting a winery,” Tom says. In just that one day, Tom learned from the college items such as land clearing, trellising the vines, harvesting the grapes, maintenance and retailing and investment income. “And I was new to the area, so I didn’t even know that we were in the middle of wine country here in Yadkin Valley,” he says.
The Silvey’s had a handful of obstacles that lay in store for them before the winery opened. One was the number of trees that encompassed the newly purchased property. “A lot of times, when people have the intention of developing a vineyard, they look for land that is already clear,” Josephine says. “We bought this land without that idea, so before we could do anything, we had to bring in a forestry manager and layout what trees had to be removed.”
Tom admits that once the slope was removed of trees, there came the thought of where to put the tasting room. Do you put it on top of the hill,
overlooking the vines? “Originally, I was thinking of doing that, but then I thought I didn’t want to be just another vineyard overlooking the vines around me.”
That led to the Silvey’s eventually buying a tract of land beside their property, including the Roaring River and stretching 7.5 acres along the river’s banks. And in July of 2016, Roaring River Vineyards opened to the public.
The Silvey’s know that opening a winery isn’t all fun and games and getting to hang out with their patrons
usually isn’t part of the daily activities. “I used to do a blog,” Josephine says. “But I haven’t been working on it because I’ve been too busy. It’s about the good, the bad and the ugly of developing your vineyard because you don’t know what challenges and obstacles you’re going to run into along the way.”
Josephine Silvey has spent most of her life in the finance world, so she has an interesting take on why Roaring River Vineyards is not only a winery but a restaurant, events center and lodging venue. “One of the things to minimize risk is diversification. The more you have of different businesses that complement each other if one goes wrong, the others come to the rescue. It works as a whole.
“We just added our RV park, which is doing very well,” Tom adds.
Roaring River Vineyards has a total of 10-acres cleared for grape growing, but as Tom states, there are only 7.5 acres of vines growing divided by half red and half white grapes. “We also have an acre and a half of filbert and oaks for a truffle farm,” Tom says.
Between 2019-20, frost was a big issue for many vineyards and wineries, and Roaring River was no exception. “We had six weeks of frost last year, and the vineyard was budding. So the buds were damaged, and they produced very little. We just let that little bit fall to the ground. It wasn’t even worth getting the pickers out there,” Josephine says.
But, as we talked about obstacles earlier, it wasn’t just frost that made producing wine disappointing for the Silvey’s. They lost two varietals one harvest due to bad corks. In another turn of bad luck, they lost more wine due to the wrong calibration of sulfur dioxide put in their bottles.
Roaring River Vineyards doesn’t have a wine-producing facility onsite, so the Silvey’s have enlisted the service of Chuck Johnson and his crew over at Shadow Springs and Windsor Run Cellars to produce their wines. “Chuck probably has more experience than our last winemaker, and he’s making wine on a grand scale,” Josephine says.
“I like that Chuck is part of the whole operation.”
Another aspect of Johnson’s operation, since his facility makes wines for several local North Carolina wineries, is that each wine will have a different recipe. “Say we’re doing a peach-infused Traminette, and another winery is doing a peach-style wine; Chuck will make sure they don’t taste the same,” Josephine says. A lot of that goes to initial tastings before the wine is bottled. Tom says they’ll taste on at least two or three occasions before making a final decision.
“Everything you do has a trade-off,” Tom is quick to summarize the natural wine hype. “Some of the best wines are made by natural yeast, but natural yeast is one of the most difficult things to do with fermentation because of its unpredictability.”
For Tom, he’ll admit that the French have been doing natural wines for many years. If a modern-day farmer or winemaker isn’t 100 percent sure what they’re doing, it could be easy to ruin the wine by not knowing how to manage natural yeast.
“Chuck is going to start using natural yeast and then kill the natural yeast and come back with a domesticated, cultured yeast to get the predictability and the outcome you want,” Tom concludes. Tom tips his cap to those who have found success in creating great-tasting natural wines
and hopes it will continue.
Our Traminette is one of the winery’s workhorse grapes. Tom confesses that it was one of the first varietals grown on the property with some advice from Sean McRitchie, owner and winemaker of McRitchie Winery & Ciderworks. “When I went to school at Surry, I met Sean’s dad who was working there, and he introduced me to Sean,” Tom says. “Sean helped us out for a couple of years, telling us where vines ought to be planted and what to be planted. And he actually helped us find our vineyard manager, who has been with us for fourteen years.”
Roaring River Vineyards allows one to stop in and try up to 10 wines, including varietals such as Chambourcin, Chardonnay, Norton, Cabernet Sauvignon, Viognier, as well as a couple blends – but it also offers a restaurant for hungry patrons. Chez Josephine’s menu includes chicken wings, crab dip, soups and salads, burgers, sandwiches and fish and chips.
“We have an executive chef and two other people in the kitchen helping him,” Josephine says. Like many other retail businesses across the state, hiring and training new employees is challenging. As Josephine says, be patient with everyone; they’re doing their best to serve you.
Roaring River Vineyards is home to four unique and relaxing lodging rentals where guests can unwind after a full day of wine and dinner.
The Aspen and Birch are both first floor, 3-room suites overlooking the river, which feature one bedroom, one bathroom, a full in-suite kitchen and outdoor patios. Above these, you’ll find the Cedar, which is the facility’s main lodging.
Featuring 4-bedrooms and two bathrooms, and a maximum occupancy of
8, this lodging takes up the entire second and third floors and offers wrap-around porches overlooking the river.
The Cedar is equipped with a fully functional kitchen, dining room, and a master bathroom that features a jacuzzi tub to relax after a long day.
Finally, there is the Serendipity cabin, which is separated from the central lodging. This private, open one-room floorplan features one bedroom and bath with nice mountain decor and a queen-size
bed. The Serendipity makes for a romantic weekend away from the big city.
All lodging guests have access to an outdoor fireplace furnished with Adirondack chairs, a private beach with catch-and-release trout fishing, bocce ball court, croquet and corn hole toss.
And for those who come prepared with their own mobile dwelling (motor home), Roaring River features a lot for RV Park near the pond, and the winery is part of the Harvest Host program.
Screw it Wine spent two days at the Traphill winery, Roaring River Vineyards. During that time Dathan Kazsuk and Jennifer Primrose interviewed owners Josephine and Tom Silvey, stayed the night in the lodging and spent some time with the couple insider their home that overlooks Stone Mountain State Park. Below was part of their time with the couple on a Monday morning.
It’s well documented that everyone hates Mondays. But that’s where this adventure begins with Tom and Josephine Silvey, owners of Roaring River Vineyards in Traphill.
The winery is closed to the public on Mondays, giving Tom time to work on all the small details needed to run a winery, restaurant and lodging business. It’s his day to get the small things done on the property – everything from changing lightbulbs to fixing a faulty keypad control system inside one of the rental units.
“You really don’t get a day off, even when the winery is closed for a day,” he says, as he gets out of his pickup truck and makes his way to the outdoor event center where he scoops up a heaping cup of fish pellets so he can feed the trout along the river.
“I do this every morning around this time,” he says as he leans up against a railing and tosses the food into the water.
Tiny fish come to the surface to eat the food as he makes his way along a 50 foot stretch of the river. He finds one spot where an 8-inch trout was hiding behind the shadow of a rock and tossed food that way.
After feeding the fish, it was time for Silvey to have his own breakfast. He makes
his way back up a hill on the property to the private residence. There he’s greeted by the couple’s five rescue dogs, of which three of them are named after characters from the TV show Gunsmoke.
Festus, Sammy, Chester, and Dolly and Lucky seem to have adopted a loyal bond with Tom, as they stick to him like red on velvet.
Tom makes his way from the garage into the house, where he is greeted by his wife Josephine, who is preparing breakfast. An egg sandwich with Canadian bacon and melted cheese, along with half an avocado, fresh fruit and some coffee.
The couple sits down around the dining room table, where through the window, they take in the spectacular views of Stone Mountain State Park. Tom’s knowledge of the land is like an open history lesson. He explains how a slight stretch of land on top of one the hills was where runaway slaves escaped and started their own camp, equipped with a printing press during the Civil War. He talks about the property lines the run along the Roaring River down the ridge and how a large mountain top to the left of his view is currently for sale by a giant cheese producer here in the state. “If
you have a million dollars, you can own a mountain,” he jokes.
Josephine clears the table as she gets ready for the day ahead of her. After recently losing the winery’s general manager, she’ll embark on getting the final touches ready for the winery’s upcoming wine club pickup.
Along with the tasting room, restaurant, event center and lodging, guests can embark on a short hiking trail around part of the Silvey’s 50 acres of land. Walking the path is another history lesson of the grounds that only Silvey can tell.
Silvey makes an immediate left out of his garage, making his way down a path as his loyal dogs tag along for the adventure. Less than 100 yards to his right are dozens of filbert shrubs, where eventually Silvey plans
Filbert shrubs and young oak trees will eventually become a truffle farm on the Silvey’s property.
on turning into a truffle farm.
“Since Filberts, or hazelnuts are shrubs, they’ll only grow for about ten years before they die, so we’ve also planted some white oaks, which should be ready by then,” Silvey says. “The way they find the truffles is they train dogs by putting truffle oil on cubes of cheese, and eventually, the dogs will acquire the scent. But you need to pull the dogs away as soon as they start digging, or they’ll eat the truffles thinking it is cheese.”
Not far up the path before reaching the shadows of the forest, a mobile home resides along with a patch of green grass. This is where Silvey’s chef lives. “While we were building our home on the property, we were living here,” he says. “After we moved out, we let our vineyard manager stay here with his family, but it got too small for the family, and they moved out to Jonesville. Now our chef lives here.”
Like a scene out of Where the Red Fern grows, Silvey enters the forest, and the dogs take off to perform their own adventures, always keeping within visible sight of their master.
Not far after entering the woods, Silvey points out an old, rusted moonshine still destroyed during Prohibition. “It looks like the law just backed a truck over the still,” he says. “They say that sometimes the
Moonshiners leave money behind so if they get caught in town, the cops wouldn’t get their stash.”
The discovery of this still isn’t far from what was once coined Cut Throat Ridge, where moonshiners were known to rat out their competition to the law. “But there is also a story that law enforcement was out there and moonshiners set a trap, and one of the law officers had his throat slashed.”
Further along the path, to the right, is a small knoll where at one time, local native Indians called this land home. It is there that Silvey has found dozens of arrows and spearheads as well as ancient pottery and artifacts.
Similar to the vines growing at Roaring River, the Indians probably used the natural slopes to plant their crops along the grounds. “I like to come out after a storm and check the slopes since the rain washes away the soil, and you can usually find more arrowheads,” Silvey says.
Besides having four cabin rentals, the winery is also a proud Harvest Host provider, which the Silvey’s recently outfitted the property to host 10 RVs. And it’s there towards the back of the site where you’ll find the one macabre story of what Tom calls Widowmaker Spring.
The story goes that back in the early 1800s, a widow had a home at the top of the hill and would have suitors come to visit her. After dating her for a while, they would always disappear without a trace. And during that period, the locals noticed the widow was becoming more wealthy. Rumors started to come to light that the widow would liquor up her guests, take them down the hill, and drown them in the spring. Silvey doesn’t know if the story is true or how she disposed of the bodies, but it makes for a good story.
You might see a familiar face in the newly developed RV park if you frequent the winery on Sunday afternoons. Roaring River enlists the music of Bill Douglass, who performs every Sunday at the tasting room. This is where you find Tom’s soft heart shining through again. “I heard Bill perform once at Shelton Vineyards and asked him about his situation about where he lived and performing at other venues,” Silvey says.
Douglass was at the time living in his exwife’s ex-husband’s front yard and down on his luck after making a move from Nashville to Sparta in 2020. He now has his RV set up at the back of the park, where Silvey lets him stay for as long as he likes – and all Douglass has to do is perform live once a week.
As Silvey finishes his trek around the property, he unlocks a gate, heading up the knoll to the old Indian campgrounds. He checks the red soil slope and immediately finds a couple tiny shards of broken arrowheads. “They’re pretty easy to find if you search for them,” he says.
At the top of the knoll, Tom receives a call on his phone.
“Hey Chuck,” he says. The Chuck on the other line is Chuck Johnson of Shadow Springs and Windsor Run Cellars, which produces, bottles and labels Silvey’s wines.
On the other end of the phone, Johnson says, “I heard it was going to rain later today and for the next couple of days. Do you need to get the workers out to harvest?”
“That’s not good for the grapes because they swell and absorb water. That reduces the acidity and the sugar in the grapes, which is not good, but I don’t have the time to get my pickers together, so I’ll take my chances,” Silvey explains why Johnson was concerned and made the call.
When the grapes get closer to harvest, the skins are weaker, and any large swell in grapes can cause the skins to split, essentially ruining the fruit.
Eventually, he makes his way back to the house to prepare for a whole afternoon of tasks that need to be done before the gates open later in the week.
As the Silvey’s both say, you get no days off when you own a winery, but they, as of right now, wouldn’t have it any other way.
That weekend we took over 150 photos of our lodging, time on the river and our walk with Tom. Be sure to click on this box to check out some of our favorite photos of our time at Roaring River Vineyards.
Take advantage of the Roaring River Vineyards Wine Club! Members receive amazing wine with zero hassle, plus exclusive offers and discounts throughout the year.
Wine club is FREE to join – We only require each member to purchase at least one case (12 bottles) of wine per year.
Wine Club members receive the following benefits:
• 12 bottles of Roaring River Vineyards wines (3 bottles either shipped or free pick-up), processed at the end of each quarter: March, June, September and December.
• Special wine only offered to club members
•1 free wine tasting or 1 free glass of wine per quarter per club member.
• 10% discount on wine-related purchases in the tasting room or online
• One night lodging packages and private fishing and RV camping privileges
• $65 charged quarterly (plus 7% NC sales taxes and, if applicable, $25 shipping cost).
Festivals are back!
From seafood festivals on the coast to celebrations honoring the legendary Bigfoot, people are starting to come out and enjoy many of the things they missed while secluded in their homes during the 2020 lockdown.
One of those annual events will be back again this Fall when Curtis Media and Food Lion sponsor the North Carolina Wine Festival on October 16 at Cary’s Koka Booth Amphitheater.
For Lisa Hobbs, event marketing sales coordinator for Raleigh’s Curtis Media, canceling a festival in May was upsetting. Still, the station is coming off the success of the Man Expo held at the NC State Fairgrounds this past June.
The North Carolina Wine festival started over 20 years ago when a local radio station in Clemmons brought wine
lovers together at Tanglewood Park. After Tanglewood Park ran its course, the event moved to the Triangle, where it saw continued success until the event was canceled last year.
“There’s something to be said for changing locations because it just creates a whole new level of excitement,” Hobbs says.
This year, the event will feature a handful of North Carolina wineries, breweries and cideries such as Carolina Brewing Company, Bull City Ciderworks, JOLO Winery and Vineyards, Raleigh Rum Company, Starrlight Mead, Duplin Winery, Seven Jars Winery & Distillery and Cypress Bend Winery.
Tina Smith, co-owner of Cypress Bend Winery in Wagram, is looking forward to this festival, who last time she attended was in Raleigh’s North Hills. “We’ve done this festival for the past five or six years here in Raleigh,” Smith says. “We’ve also done this in the past at Tanglewood, but unless you were a longtime vendor, it was hard to get in the infield, and you are out in the parking lot, and everyone walks right past you.”
Cypress Bend is one of the top producing muscadine wineries in the state that has won the Winegrowers Cup 5 times for its sweet wines.
This year, Cypress Bend Winery will be joining over a dozen NC wineries that produce sweet or fruit wines, including the World’s top producing Muscadine wine
Annual wine festival is once again scheduled, but this year in Cary
company, Duplin Winery, out of Rose Hill, North Carolina.
While the festival relies heavily on sweeter wines, a handful of these wineries, such as Cypress Bend, also bottle vitis vinifera-style wines, such as its Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec.
“That’s why we try to bring everything because we don’t know who our customer will be,” Smith says. “If we just bring 5 or 6 wines that are semi-sweet to sweet, we can miss a whole lot of customers who want to try our dry wines.”
Another participant to the festival but no stranger to award-winning wines is JOLO Winery & Vineyards out of Pilot Mountain. JOLO will be offering up some predominately dry reds – but is that wise in a festival dominated with semi-sweet wines? According to Traphill’s Roaring River Vineyards co-owner Thomas Silvey, it’s brilliant. “They will be out there serving wines to people wanting dry wines and gaining more attention with people from the Triangle area.”
Unlike events such as the Beericana craft beer festival, the North Carolina Wine Festival did not cut down on ticket sales and is looking to have roughly 3,000+ attendees when the festival takes place. With the size of Koka Booth and hand sanitizer stations throughout the event, Hobbs
feels they are playing it safe.
But one issue many festivals are seeing is staffing issues with potential vendors. “A lot of wineries that usually come are saying they can’t, or they’re waiting to see. We currently have a good list, but we usually have a little more wineries at this time lined up,” Hobbs says.
Cypress Bend is no exception to the lack of employees. “We recently hired three new employees that are going through training,” Smith says. And with many wineries knee-deep in harvest time, it’s just hard for them to commit. But Smith offers up a good piece of advice to any vendor looking to participate in a festival.
“Figure out your staff for festivals. You can keep it tight and only have 2 to 3 people, and people have to wait in line, or you can open it up and have more people and sell more. It just depends on which you are going for.”
Raleigh’s Mordecai Brewing recently celebrated its 2nd anniversary and has a different perspective on festivals. Owner Andrew Christenbury likes taking his beers to events. Still, he has to pick and choose, depending on the size of the festival.
“We’ll be doing Brewgaloo’s Block Party on Friday night, but we just don’t have enough product to be there on Saturday,” Christenbury says. “It’s just not worth it to us to sell that much product at wholesale.”
But Mordecai has plans for many other local events that draw in many beer drinkers, such as the annual Hops for Hope in Raleigh and the Beericana craft beer festival in Holly Springs.
With Hops for Hope, Christenbury has now done this charity event for a couple of years and likes the concept of working with local companies to make a beer.
“Last year, it was virtual, but we still raised around $1,500 for the charity,” he says. In 2020, Mordecai Brewing teamed up with Citrix, who knew exactly what they wanted him to craft – a high ABV, double IPA that was fruity. This year, Christenbury was paired with HH Architecture and created a blonde ale with citrus and honey.
Fun Dip (5.2% ABV)
Sour; rating: 4.10
Double Chocolate Porter (7% ABV)
Porter - Imperial/double; rating: 3.94
Strawberry/Lemon Spring Ale (5.7% ABV)
Sour – Fruited; rating: 3.88
Gateway Brown Ale (5.2% ABV)
Brown Ale – American; rating: 3.81
Fenton Street Dunkelweizen (7% ABV) Dunkelweizen; rating: 3.74
SOURCE: Untappd
“That’s why we try to bring everything because we don’t know who our customer will be.”
– Tina Smith
Cypress Bend Winery
Whether you are seeking a wine tour, pub crawl, guided scenic ride, or cider experience, Van in Black delivers with the highest rated tours and exclusive VIP options that nobody else can deliver.
Our stylish, comfortable, and spacious vehicles are the perfect complement to your next adventure. Proms, corporate outings, bachelorette parties, or even your next lift to the airport, we have you covered!
Tell us how Van in Black got started. I stumbled upon this business by dumb luck. I worked in IT for 30-something years, and I was working for a startup in Atlanta, where I was the chief information security officer – and things didn’t work out. So I found myself 50-something years old and unemployed, and I told my wife, “you know what? Screw corporate America. I’m done. I’m going to do my own thing.” I started six companies and figured we’d throw mud against the wall and see what sticks. I already had the van, and people were calling it the van in black. So I looked online, and vaninblack.com was available, so I thought, what the hell, let’s deal with that.
So you had the van, you had the name, but now you had to decide what you were going to do with it. I had zero experience running a transportation company, so I started looking into it. At first, I thought it was very complicated with all these federal regulations. I found this company that helps all these trucking companies with their compliance and spoke to a salesperson. He told me for $400, they could get me compliant, and for $300 a year, they’ll keep me compliant. After that, they called me and told me I had my insurance; I got my certificate of authority from the Department of Transportation. You are now completely legit to operate.
What was your next step? What did you do? I remember asking just that,
The Transportation service is known for many packages, including winery stops.
and they told me that I’d figure it out. So having an IT background, I just started looking at what markets I could serve, and my wife and I like wine and wineries, and it seemed like an underserved market at the time.
When did Van in Black become official? It was June of 2018. It was around March of that year that I filed the paperwork for the company. So from March to June, we got everything done.
So you started with just one van, and today you currently have five, correct? Yes, we just got the fifth van Friday night, and we’re probably going to be getting one more before the end of the year.
How many employees do you have
working for Van in Black? We have eight employees – my wife and I included we have ten people. Nine of them will be drivers, including my wife and myself, and then we have one person helping out with administrative and dispatch.
As a transportation company, you do everything from winery tours to pub crawls, bachelorette parties, proms and city tours. What would you say is the company’s meal ticket? Ninety percent of our business and our passion are winery tours. They really keep us busy.
Where is the company based? We are based in the tiny town of Bostic, North Carolina. Bostic is strategically located between Asheville, Charlotte and Greenville, South Carolina. That
gives us a kind of striking distance to serve all three of those metropolitan areas within a reasonable timeframe.
A group is interested in using your service. What’s next? Do they give you a call, or do it all online? You go to our website and our booking tab. It lists all the vehicles and all our pricing. Everything is straightforward. We don’t have hidden charges. We don’t charge sales tax because the state doesn’t charge sales tax. A lot of competitors will charge sales tax. And we don’t automatically include gratuity or anything like that. You can book on our website without talking to anyone, and you’ll get followup emails that will tell you what to expect next. We make it very simple and easy to do.
Do you have to pick your hours in advance? Say we’re initially booked for 5 hours, but we’re having so much fun that we want to stay out longer. We don’t make you pick the hours. We’ve got a four-hour minimum that covers our costs to get to you and everything – which is very common in the industry. We don’t double book when it comes to our tours. I tell the people you booked me for the day, but you pay by the hour. And that gives the customer the freedom to enjoy the day however they want to. They
don’t need to feel rushed.
We know you need to have a “For Hire” vehicle to allow non-drivers to drink in a car. Do you have that license? Yes. So in North Carolina, they do have an exemption for the open container law for “For hire” vehicles. But if we go into South Carolina, that’s not the case. So we tell people you have to wait until we get across the border. We have all the legitimate “For Hire” plates and have our federal DOT number, so we check all the boxes that allow us to do that. Not all transportation companies have that.
Without naming names, are there places you like to go to more than other sites because you have wineries that work with you – and others that don’t? Inevitably that’s going to happen. We do have preferred trails that we know will function better. Some wineries have a problem dealing with large groups showing up.
Do you call ahead for the large groups you’ll be bringing in? We try to call ahead, but some of them are first come, first serve. There are some wineries where we might come in with a large group, and they’ll say, “Oh gosh, we’re too crowded,” but the next time we show up, they’ll
have more tables. And it’s like, OK, they get it. And then there are the wineries that we show up, and they freak out, and they’ll say, “This is too much. You can’t bring groups here anymore.”
It’s good to have a working relationship with some of these more prominent wineries, so they know when you are coming and welcome your guests. Yes. When we have a good enough relationship with a winery, they’ll roll out the red carpet, have a table waiting for us, and recognize the group. They will give them the rock star treatment. We will tell them about the winery coming in, and then it’s just a seamless experience when they get in the winery – just an epic experience for the customer.
Recently, we were at a winery where the owners said a big group of people were coming soon, and they never showed up. I’m sure that happens from time to time with you if your group is having a blast at another place. How do you explain that to the winery expecting you? So, the good wineries get that we’re not ultimately controlling the client’s schedule, and they’re flexible with us. The wineries we ultimately try to avoid are the ones that just don’t get it.
Bottle shop finely curates over 500 of the world’s best wines
For North Carolina native Russ Broome, owning a neighborhood bar such as the friendly confines in the 80s sitcom Cheers was regularly a dream in the back of his subconscious.
With an engineering degree from North Carolina State University, Broome spent much of his adult life working in the plastics manufacturing industry dealing with cell phones and automobiles.
But tragedy struck when he lost his father to cancer in 2017, and one year later, his mentor to the same dreaded disease. Then, during the Covid pandemic, his mother contracted cancer. Life was indeed throwing him a curveball. Life is too short was his new mantra, and Broome moved on – the passion for plastics was gone.
The thought of opening a neighborhood bar, and his inner Sam Malone, could still become a glimmer of hope, but with many bars seeing closures and going
out of business due to the pandemic, he quickly strayed down a new path.
Looking down the path of the bottle shop was now on his horizon. While bars were failing nationwide, the bottle shop model was successful in 2020, with Americans consuming more alcohol than ever before.
Spending hours upon hours visiting bottle shops around the Triangle, Broome took notes. Day and night, he viewed the people coming in and out of the shops. The prime hours. How long they were in the store. Did they allow dogs and children?
He was ready to conquer the world with concepts and even names for the shop in his head. But in a whirlwind of events, which included the possibility of working with a franchise in western Carolina that had no Triangle presence, he stumbled upon three words: BottleMixx for sale!
RayLen wines, but I just wouldn’t put North Carolina wines as a whole on our wall.
Shelf space is two important words to remember in the wine and beer world. Everyone is competing for shelf space because shops only have so much of it. That’s right. There are a few North Carolina brewery’s that you probably won’t see on our shelves because I just don’t think they do good beer. But, if they have something that we taste next week and is phenomenal, we’ll have it on our shelves. It’s not about pretty bottles and cans; the wine and beer have to be good.
So in June of 2021, Broome became the new owner of a bottle shop that built up a friendly clientele in its years of serving wine and beer to its north Raleigh patrons. And he inherited the shop’s knowledgeable staff, which includes wine expert Jack Hicks and beer enthusiast, Jameson Snodgress.
Talk about your wine tastings at BottleMixx. Many shops will do free tastings on select days every week, but you are doing paid events every other week. Can you tell us why you chose this route? I don’t like free tastings. They’re not fair to either the proprietor or the patron. The only person that’s attractive to is that person who wants to come in and get 6 to 8 samples to have a free glass of wine. People who really want to learn and really are interested in getting to know their palate and understand why they like this over that will pay for the education.
What does an individual get for the cost of your wine tasting admission? We only sell tickets in couples, so it’ll be $40 to $60 per pair. They all sell out. We do two seatings every other Saturday – 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. Those will be identical – so the same region and the same wine. Jack hits rewind and play. He spends a little over an
hour with each sitting, intensely going over the region and anywhere between five to eight wines. We’ll have whites and reds, maybe a bubbly or rosé. And each person gets close to half a glass per wine. And every pour, you get a fresh glass, so there’s no pressure to finish all the wine with each pour.
Before I arrived, they were only doing 10-12 per seating, and now we’re doing 18 to 20 per session. We do hearty food that matches that region that pairs well with the wine. Recently we did a fajita bar, pizza, deli meats from Lafayette Village. So it’s wine, food and education when you come to one of our tastings.
Looking at your wall of wines and then some, the one thing we noticed is that BottleMixx doesn’t carry any North Carolina wines. I just don’t think they stack up to what we’re trying to do here – we have a very carefully curated wine wall. It’s the best of the best, and it’s not all expensive. We have some $9 bottles on our wall that will blow your mind.
We would put a handful of North Carolina wines in a blind tasting with some California and European wines that might surprise you. Well, I love RayLen. I really love a couple of
BottleMixx’s wine and beer are brought in by your expert employees, Jack and Jamison. Do you put all your trust in them, bringing in the best of the best? Yes, definitely. I did not want inventory on the retail side or my tap list and wine by the glass list to reflect the owner. The reason I say that is because I’ve been in bottle shops, and I ask, “Why do you have so much of this?” – and their response is, “that’s what the owner likes.” I want to take my personal preference out of the loop, and Jack and Jamison know I want our list fitting for our clientele. And if there’s a new trend our clientele is into, we have to bring it into the store.
It seemed like BottleMixx was more of a beer hang-out than a wine stop back with the previous owners. That’s true. I think the original owner wanted a store, and he wanted a beer store. Then he learned that wine would be a good addition, so you started to see more wine. I wanted that neighborhood bar, which needs to be mixed in with that bottle shop, especially during the pandemic. I have been slowly shifting this from a store with some onsite tasting to primarily a bar where people come to hang out with some retail you can take home. So lately, I’ve been seeing people’s onsite time grow longer here and seeing more of my credit card number swipes go up. So I’m seeing a lot more new faces, which is the trend I’m trying to achieve at this time.
Located in Asheville, North Carolina, Wehrloom Honey and Meadery started bottling mead in 2017.
Owners Aron and Jessica Wehr founded the company back in 2013 as beekeepers and honey producers, and four years later got into the world of mead. Screw it Wine asked them five questions, about their meadery.
Explain how you got interested in making mead and how that led to you starting your own business? We started as beekeepers with a love for beers. That grew to selling honey, and making a line of skincare products, but we always had the idea of mead on our mind. Our production facility is located in a dry county, so getting permits was no easy task and took far longer than expected. Now I can’t see us doing it any differently.
How do you explain to people who don’t drink mead that not all mead is sweet? Especially in a state where it’s known for Muscadine, which is a sweet-style grape. I would say our meads are more for a beer drinker. They’re all dry and lightly carbonated and, by comparison, have a lower ABV than most. I think the problem is the word “honey.” Once it comes into play, people generally assume it is going to be sweet. We’re trying to break down the perception.
Honey is a lot heavier than grape juice; how do you go about getting honey into your fermentation tank and getting your honey to mix with water? Honey mixes really well with warm water. We use a kettle to warm water to about 100 degrees and then mix honey in. Afterward, it gets pumped into the fermentation vessel.
Talk about the rise of mead in the past ten years. This
beverage is getting more attention than ever before. Do you think this number will continue to grow in the state? Sure, it’ll grow, but not in the same way as beer. The main ingredient, honey, is expensive, relatively hard to source in large quantities, and only seasonally available. I would love to see more mead available throughout the state, but I believe it will be a slower, more sustained rise.
Is it easier to convince wine or beer drinkers to try mead? In our travels, we see more beer drinkers open to the opportunity to try mead than wine drinkers. We agree. Beer drinkers seem to be our biggest customer base. We sort of playoff that and make a pale ale clone mead and a juicy IPA-style mead. Something that is familiar to get them hooked.
Birthplace: Florida
Years making mead: 7
Family: Wife, two daughters
What were some of your greatest achievements in the past year? Opening a second location in downtown Asheville, despite all the hurdles thrown at us by the pandemic.
What has been one of the biggest challenges you’ve faced while making mead? Figuring how to scale our recipes. We started in 5 gallon carboys, then moved to 40 gallons, and currently making 320 gallon batches.
A treat for the beer lover. A treat for the meat lover. That’s what’s in store for anyone picking up a package of Hickory Nut Gap Meats’ latest trio of delicious goodness as the farm has teamed up with perennial Asheville brewery, Wicked Weed and Spicewalla Spice Co.
The trifecta has introduced three new mouthwatering beer sausages that are sure to be your grill’s best buddy the rest of this summer.
Appalachian Style Dinner Sausage: These sausages are made using Wicked Weed’s Appalachia Session IPA, sassafras and sumac;
Bratwurst Dinner Sausage: These sausages are made using Wicked Weed’s Pernicious IPA and Cascade hops; and Jerk Style Dinner Sausage: These sausages are made using Wicked Weed’s Fresh Pressed Wheat Ale, jerk seasoning and habanero.
With the Jerk sausages, one of the first things we thought of was a pizza. Most pizzas, such as the California Pizza Kitchen, used jerk-style chicken, so we just came up with our take using Hickory Nut Gap’s sausage.
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE COAST – EXPLORING FARMERS AND VENDORS WHO PROVIDE NORTH CAROLINA LOCAL PRODUCE
Did you know that up to 40 percent of farmers’ crops are often left out on the field due to odd shapes, sizes or even excess? In many cases, these perfectly ripe fruits and vegetables are plowed up, left to rot, or left behind for birds and other animals to consume.
That’s where Will Kornegay and his sister Laura Hearn come into the picture. Aware of all this good fruit left unused, the duo created Ripe Revival in 2019 as a way to turn left behind fruit into healthy products utilizing ground-breaking technology.
Using this technology, Ripe Revival can gather the bioactive richness of the fruits and vegetables to maximize protein. That means they create healthy yet delicious, nutrient-dense gummies that have no artificial ingredients.
That flavor can be found inside all four of Ripe Revival’s gummy pouches: blueberry, cinnamon swirl, Muscadine grape and peach gummies. Each bag contains 7 grams of protein and only 160 calories, making it a perfect snack for children and adults alike.
Triangle Around Town captured excerpts from a phone interview with Ripe Revival’s Will Kornegay.
How did you come up with the idea for Ripe Revival? Our background is in fresh produce. Laura and I started in the industry working for major competitors. We both worked for large growers and shippers of sweet potatoes – actually two of the biggest companies in the world that deal with sweet potatoes. So it was always a fun family rivalry where we were competing against each
other in the same industry.
We were exposed to big agriculture where we utilized 100 percent of the crops. The company I worked for had 13,000 acres of sweet potatoes, and the owner had a puree plant, a sweet potato vodka distillery and a dehydration facility. So he could use every single potato.
I saw the benefit, efficiency, and impact on profitability and realized that many small farmers didn’t have that luxury. I learned a lot from that job and decided it was time to take my experience and my passion for developing a company that helps small farmers, so we launched Ripe Revival as a means to do that.
So part of the business model for Ripe Revival is essential to help farmers with buying excess fruits and vegetables? Yes. We use produce from farmers to create a patented protein gummy. We launched that and got a grant from Kroger to fund the equipment and a production facility to take our product to a commercial scale. I bought a building and started fitting it up, and the week we were supposed to launch production, Covid-19 shut down the state. Our retailers told us they weren’t taking products or new vendors for a year.
We had to chase several different business models to survive and keep our employees in motion. With our life savings tied up, and a career we ditched to launch our own business, we pivoted quickly and founded Ripe Revival Market, which has been our core over the past year.
That’s incredible that you were able to build four different companies while under the pandemic. So there is so much more to Ripe Revival than just the gummies. But how did the concept of the gummies come into play? While I was with Ham Produce, I co-founded Glean with my sister and the owners of Ham Produce. We utilized the commercial dehydration facility and its product to create a consumer brand together. We scaled that business into about 3,000 retail stores in our first year and just learned a lot about e-commerce, consumer packaged goods, products and
building a brand. That caught the eye of a technology partner who had this technology for this patented gummy, and they came to us and asked if we would be interested in starting a company for gummies. Long story short, that’s how we came to be a company that makes gummies.
And what makes these gummies different from anything else a consumer can buy at the grocery store? It’s an all-natural gummy and the first-ever gummy made from upcycled produce. Our primary ingredient is sweet potato juice. We don’t use all the sugars and corn syrups that standard gummies use. We use natural sweeteners like sweet potato syrup. But our secret sauce is really the patented technology we use – which we have about 18 patents that we utilize where we extract polyphenols and antioxidants from fruits and vegetables and make a complex patented ingredient called Vitero, which is a protein ingredient where we fortify proteins with those polyphenols and create a unique, nutrient dense ingredient.
What has been the most popular gummy you have out of the four flavors? I would say the most popular from a pure data standpoint of sales volume are peach and blueberry. They’re tied. My personal favorite is the Muscadine grape gummy.
Do you get your Muscadine grapes through local vineyards? We have worked with a few North Carolina vineyards, but it depends on what’s in season and what our demand is as a small company. Until our volumes grow, we have to purchase ingredients strategically. We’ve worked with Polk Vineyards out of Georgia.
What’s next? We’ve formulated protein smoothies that will be in pouches. We’re hoping to get those out by the end of the year or the first quarter of next year. We’re working on formulas to take the pomace that we extract the polyphenols from and using them as a fiber source to make protein bars down the road.
Mustard is a top-notch condiment to any charcuterie board – it can kick up the taste of the sliced meats, especially if the mustard has a little oomph! And we found some great local NC mustards with some heat!
Lusty Monk out of Candler, NC, creates spicy, coarse-ground, smallbatch mustards that go great on just about anything. Besides adding to a charcuterie board while sipping on some wine, the mustard can be added to Deviled Eggs, giving it some zing. Also, try it on a ham and cheese for a more intense sandwich.
Lusty Monk comes in three great flavors – you have the original, honey mustard and the chipotle, which has a nice hint of heat and smoke, which really goes well with grilled bratwurst!
Another mustard we like is Bone Suckin’ Mustard, which is made by Ford’s Foods in Raleigh. This is a sweet mustard which goes well with smoked brisket and ribs. Bone Suckin’ Mustard is very versatile. It doesn’t only pair well with meats; try it with pasta, vegetables, cheeses and seafood. The label has a recipe for a blissful seaside sauce that pairs well with raw oysters with a dash of hot sauce on top!
Finally, we tried Peggy Rosés Champagne Mustard, made in Wake Forest. This stone-ground mustard is a more traditional deli mustard, but with a nice splash of white wine to add a little sweetness.
Try this mustard as the base to your very own Charcuterie Pizza. Yes, that’s right. Lay this down instead of pizza sauce and top with grated Gouda cheese, prosciutto, salami, sweet peppadew peppers and red onions. What a treat!
Z Lusty Monk Mustards
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Z Peggy Rosés Champagne Mustard
A ‘MUST-ARD’ FOR ANY PARTY!
If you’re like me, you might have pondered the possibility of making your own wine at home.
But the thought of buying a box of juice at the local brewing store and pitching some yeast didn’t feel that exciting. So when Library Tales Publishing approached us and asked if we were interested in receiving the book by Yacov Morad called Beyond Grapes: How to Make Wine Out of Anything but Grapes, we were intrigued!
The book features over 100 recipes by Morad, an Israeli winemaker who started his own winery back in 1999, creating wines from passionfruit, lychee, parsley, dates and even sage.
Morad has over 30 years of winemaking experience and has put all his recipes into one easy-to-read book. He starts with fruit wines, which feature over 30 recipes. You’ll find the go-to fruit wines such as raspberry, cherry and plum, but more obscure wines to make such as date, rice, Annona and jackfruit.
Morad figuratively throws the book out the window and shares his ideas on some crazy-sounding vegetable wines. Your mind really starts to consider how these wines would taste when you see pages for carrot, beet, pumpkin, onion, and sweet potato wines.
In the next chapter, Morad shares recipes for his medicinal herb wines. Many of these sound like they would be the perfect ingredients for dry meads, but for wines? We’ll have to try a few of them for ourselves.
Would you be interested in a parsley wine? How about a dill weed or chicory wine? Morad offers a selection of sixteen wines in that chapter.
The following two chapters are on liqueurs and dry-fruit liqueurs. Morad explains that every liqueur needs an alcoholic base, suggesting either vodka or brandy.
These recipes make small amounts, so you don’t have to go crazy buying a lot of fruit or vegetables to make your wine. Each recipe is for making a liter, or 33.84 fluid ounces, or 1,000 milliliters of liquid.
We thought this was a great book to thumb through and will share the wines we will make from this book on our social media.
If you are a wine or mead hobbyist, this is a book for you.
By Patrick Duffeler
We have been regular visitors and fans of the Williamsburg Winery in Virginia for many years. This worldclass winery sits on 300-acres, just outside historic Williamsburg. We’ve enjoyed many tastings, wine club events, vineyard concerts, lunches at the Gabriel Archer Tavern and a stay at the Wedmore Place. When I learned that founder and owner, Patrick Duffeler, published an updated edition of The Art & Science of Viticulture and Winemaking at the Williamsburg Winery, I was intrigued enough to order a copy. This book is easy to read and understand for the novice or experienced oenophile. It’s full of fun facts, rich with history and provides a great introduction to the winery and vineyard itself. Topics range from viticulture, winemaking techniques, wine regions and grape varietals. Are you curious about the art of barrel making, a history of bottle making, corks, capsules, and screw tops? This book will delve into these topics as well. This book is interesting because the basics of wine and viticulture are intertwined within the story and history of the Williamsburg Winery.
The author takes the reader on a sneak peek of Wessex Hall and its classic fireplaces, the 1619 Pavilion, Wedmore Place, the Frenchinspired Gabriel Archer Tavern, as well as the Merchant’s Square Wine Bar and Tasting Room in Colonial Williamsburg. It’s a wine guide nestled within the history of the vineyard and winery.
As much as this book centers around Williamsburg and touches on the history of Virginia wine, don’t let that fool you. The author does an excellent job teaching those winemaking and vineyard basics, the aroma wheel, and a peek at some food and wine pairings. Pairing ideas from Sancerre and Pouilly-Flume paired with Escargots in a Garlic Butter Sauce to a more traditional California Cabernet Sauvignon paired with Beef Tenderloin Chasseur are covered.
The book is available at https:// store.nexternal.com/wmbgstore/ art-and-science-of-viticulture-andwinemaking-c107.aspx
– Jennifer Primrose“At a winery like this, it takes a team. I want everybody on my team to be involved and to know what they’re doing and why they’re doing it.”
– Matthew Meyer Winemaker, Williamsburg Winery
Imust confess that I prefer red wines more than white wines. Obviously, there are times and circumstances when a white wine is much more appropriate, especially during the warmer months. So, I challenged myself over the summer to explore more white wine varietals and the subtle nuances that distinguish them from one another.
Over the last few months, I have enjoyed a variety of white wines. Not only the standard Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and occasional Viognier, but I have sampled Albariño, Sevyal Blanc and Chardonel. I have even branched out into varietals such as Rkatsiteli and Garganega, all in the name of broadening my palate and appreciation for white wines.
When I discovered the Yadkin Summer Whites event in Yadkin Valley, I immediately saw it as an opportunity to continue my journey discovering white wines and even enjoyed some tapas-style food pairings along the way.
It allowed me to visit some wineries and vineyards I had not seen in a long time.
The Yadkin Summer Whites trail was staged throughout a couple of weekends (August 14-15 and August 21-22) with very reasonable ticket prices allowing you to enjoy one or both weekends.
My journey started at Divine Llama Vineyards in East Bend. It had been a while since my last visit to the winery known for its wines and the llamas. At Divine Llama, we were treated to a glass of its 4 Vines Blend (a blend of Traminette, Viognier, Chardonnay and Valvin) paired with Thai Peanut Spicy
Noodles. The combination worked well with the acidity of the wine, balancing the spiciness of this popular Thai dish.
It was an excellent start to the day and had us anticipating our next destination. Our next stop was one of my favorites – Flint Hill Vineyards, also located in East Bend. Here we were treated to a chicken pasta with Chardonnay wine sauce paired with Flint Hill’s Chardonnay. This combination paired well with fresh parsley garnish that added a distinct taste of summer to the dish.
One of my favorites was at Cellar 4201 Vineyard, our third location of the day, also in East Bend. We were remarkably impressed with their offering – herbed balsamic honey glazed chicken served with its barrel-aged Chardonnay. This pairing was magical, with the crisp acidity of the Chardonnay perfectly enhancing the grilled sweetness of the chicken.
Next was RagApple Lassie Vineyards, located in Boonville. This working farm holds the unique distinction of being a Century Farm – which means it has been continuously owned by a single family for over 100 years.
The winery paired a spicy
The chicken and wine paring at Cellar 4201, and the dessert and wine pairing at Sander’s Ridge were two of Barham’s favorite pairings of the afternoon.
southwestern pasta salad with its Kaleidoscope Gold (a dry blend of unoaked Chardonnay, Traminette and Viognier). This mediumbodied wine with a nose of honey, pineapple, and peach with a touch of fig, more than stood up to the spicy pasta blend it was paired with.
The final stop of our journey was at Sanders Ridge Vineyards, located in Boonville. Along with the offering from Cellar 4201, this one really stood out. The whipped lemon mousse paired with the winery’s Viognier making me want a much more significant portion, and I felt sad when it was gone. The tart flavor of the lemon and the floral notes and acidity of the Viognier was a match made in heaven and a worthy finale to the Yadkin Summer Whites.
The prior weekend August 14-15, had these participating vineyards and wineries: Brandon Hills Vineyard, Shadow Springs Vineyards, Midnight Magdalena Vineyards, and Windsor Run Cellars.
Keep your fingers crossed and hope the Winter Reds event is right around the corner – and make sure to take advantage of this fresh opportunity to expand your palate, and explore North Carolina’s unique wineries.
THE ANNUAL FAVORITE IN YADKIN VALLEY PAIRS CLASSIC WHITE WINES WITH FRESH FOODThe Williamsburg Winery Wine Club is our most intimate connectionwith our customers, and we take pride in providing members with the ultimate experience in world-class wine, food and accommodations.
The Swan Creek AVA, an American Viticultural Area, is located in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. An AVA is an area designated for grape-growing due to its climate, soil and elevation. North Carolina currently has six AVAs. Swan Creek was established in May 2008 as the second AVA with Yadkin Valley being the first. Swan Creek is a subappellation of the Yadkin Valley AVA.
However, the story of the Swan Creek AVA as a wine region began many millions of years ago, when a small landmass in the Southeastern corner of what would become the North American continent was thrust skyward thanks to geological forces.
To learn more about the story of how it all began, purchase a copy Triangle Around Town’s first e-book, The Wineries of Swan Creek. This e-book is an interactive guide for visiting each of these wineries with general information, tastings and membership costs.
Book features Dobbins Creek, Laurel Gray, Midnight Magdalena, Piccione, Raffaldini, Shadow Springs, Stardust Cellars and WIndsor Run Cellars.